Death row inmate gouges out remaining eye

SHERMAN, Texas, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- A convicted killer on death row in Texas who gouged out his remaining eye and ate it has been transferred to a psychiatric unit for evaluation, lawyers said.

Lawyers for inmate Andre Thomas told the Sherman Herald Democrat they hope he will now get the psychiatric treatment he needs.

"He is in the Jester Unit where he will finally be able to receive the mental health care that we had wanted and begged for from Day 1," attorney Bobbie Peterson-Cate, who represented Thomas at his 2005 trial, said.

Thomas was convicted of killing his estranged wife, their son and her infant daughter. He cut their hearts out and told police he took the organs home and then threw them in the trash.

When he was in the Grayson County Jail in 2004, he was sent to a psychiatric hospital after gouging out one of his eyes. When he was returned to the jail, a judge ruled that he was competent to stand trial.

Joe Brown, the Grayson County district attorney, said that he did not know whether Thomas's latest self-mutilation would affect his appeal.